A recent UK health trend is growing in popularity for Kiwis. 

Zebra striping means alternating between alcohol and a no or low-alcohol drink while socialising. 

Independent consumer research found that 55% of Kiwi respondents said they've drunk low-alcohol beverages in the past year. 

Alcohol Beverages Council Executive Director Virginia Nicholls told Ryan Bridge the growth of these drinks is being driven by a trend of moderation.  

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On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Wednesday 22nd of January, the latest inflation data is coming out today, so how will that shape us for 2025? 

Marco Rubio's former chief of staff Matt Terrill gives his take on the first 24 hours of Donald Trump as well as Rubio being sworn in as the new Secretary of State. 

Ginny Andersen flies solo on Politics Wednesday, discussing the cost of living, the latest political poll, and the Treaty Principles Bill submissions.  

Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

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Labour has eked ahead in the polls as the cost of living crisis bites. 

The latest Taxpayers' Union Curia poll has Labour overtaking National, the latter falling to 29.6%, against Labour's four percentage point jump, to 30.9%. 

Ginny Andersen told Ryan Bridge that it’s an indication the economy is biting. 

She says that New Zealanders aren’t really getting what they voted for, and that’s coming through in the polls.  

Health is the other big ticket issue impacting the polls, Andersen says, which is why Luxon is trying to head it off by putting Simeon Brown in charge of the portfolio. 

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The dairy sector's upbeat heading into the new year. 

Dairy prices are up 1.4% at the latest Global Dairy Trade auction, while Fonterra's still predicting farmgate milk prices to reach a record $10.50 midpoint this year. 

New Zealand's milk production in 2024 was also the highest in five years. 

Fonterra co-operative council chair, John Stevenson told Ryan Bridge it's looking really positive from an on-farm perspective. 

He says supplementary feed supplies, silage, and crops have had a good start to summer. 

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A new Cabinet's awaiting confirmation to drive home Donald Trump's vision for America. 

Trump's four year presidential term has officially begun, and he's already signed scores of executive actions concerning immigration, diversity protections, and the environment. 

The first of his Cabinet nominees, Marco Rubio has also been confirmed as Secretary of State.  

Rubio's former chief of staff Matt Terrill told Ryan Bridge Rubio has his hands full with the complex foreign policy environment, but there's no one better equipped for the job.  

He says Rubio's served on the Foreign Relations and Senate Intel committees, and he knows these world leaders and the issues facing the US and the world. 

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There are teacher shortages across a range of subjects in secondary school, as there generally are at the start of each year.  

More than 400 principal and teaching roles are currently being advertised in the Education Gazette.  

In 2024 there were almost 1600 vacancies, a similar number to recent comparable years.  

Secondary Principals' Council Chair Kate Gainsford told Ryan Bridge schools are employing a lot of teachers from overseas.  

She says it's a worldwide problem, but we also need to be building up a local pool of teachers. 

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Cautious optimism from economists ahead of the latest inflation numbers. 

Stats NZ will deliver its latest inflation update on the year to December at 10.45 this morning. 

Many economists expect it to be slightly down, but ANZ predicts it will remain unchanged and BNZ is forecasting a slight rise. 

ASB Chief Economist Nick Tuffley told Ryan Bridge we need to still be cautious as domestic inflation remains relatively high. 

He says for inflation to stay around 2% the domestic rate needs to come down. 

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There's outrage over Donald Trump's decision to release convicted Capitol rioters from prison.  

The new President has signed off a flurry of executive orders following his inauguration, many sparking national and global concern. 

Trump's issued pardons and commutations to more than a thousand felons involved in the attacks to disrupt the transfer of power on January 6th, 2021.  

US correspondent Richard Arnold told Ryan Bridge that includes those convicted of assaulting police officers, many of whom are feeling betrayed.  

He says Trump's taken to calling those tried and convicted of crimes, 'hostages', and has often played a recording of them singing The Stars and Stripes Forever from prison. 

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Donald J. Trump has been inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States. 

Behind the pomp and ceremony are lessons for politicians on the left here and around the world. 

Labelling your opponent a racist, a nazi, an extremist, a homophobe, a sexist, anti-trans, a threat to democracy, a tyrant, and sexist won’t win you an election. 

Biden, and then Harris, threw the kitchen sink of threats about Trump at the public and none of it stuck. 

The Obama's, the Pelosi's and the Clinton's of American politics did their best to paint Trump as a dystopian dictator, hell-bent on crucifying immigrants and minorities. 

And what happened? They lost. He won. 

A clean sweep of the battlegrounds. 

The House. The Senate. The electoral college. The popular vote. 

And around half of Latino voters, the highest ever for a Republican, even higher than George W. Bush in 2004. 

Record numbers of minorities voted for Trump. 

His election was of course run against a backdrop of a tough economy and inflation hitting punters hard. Plus, Joe Biden was, well, literally stumbling to the finish line, struggling to walk and talk. 

But the fact remains voters picked the guy who’d been labelled all these awful things because they trusted him to turn the economy around, and some also to stop the free speech moderators and pronoun police. 

So, what’s the lesson here? For Hipkins it doesn’t matter how many times you call Seymour and/or Luxon a racist - it won’t get you back for the greasy benches. 

Labour and its allies are gearing up for a fresh onslaught of attacks on race as the Treaty Bill goes to select committee. 

But here’s the thing - most Kiwis aren’t listening. Look at the polls. 

The Ipsos issues monitor from late last year showed that. Inflation, health, economy, crime, housing, poverty etc were the big issues. Race relations? 15th on 6%. 

Those in the left would do better —and we’d all benefit from this— if they’d stop the name-calling and start coming up with serious, credible, alternative economic plans to get this country firing again. 

Labour was supposed to be a party for the workers. They’ve let provincial New Zealand down badly with economic mismanagement and energy policies that may have suited a speech at UNGA in New York, but certainly not the good people of Ruapehu. 

And that’s the lesson Trump is giving the left today. The recipe used over the past decade of window dressing, performative politics, identity politics, virtue signalling, and demonising your opponents no longer works on the people who matter most. 

The voters. 

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Bic Runga is one of New Zealand’s iconic performers – dazzling audiences since the release of her first single in 1996.  

She went on to reach international fame, as well as winning the most New Zealand Music Awards by an individual ever.  

Runga is currently on the road as part of the Greenstone Summer Concert Tour, performing alongside Cold Chisel, Icehouse, and Everclear. 

The first show of the tour was this past weekend in Queenstown, and Runga told Ryan Bridge that she’s having ‘such a good time’ on the road. 

“It was really cool to meet these guys on the road,” she said of the other performers. 

“They’re all legends and, y'know, they’re all lovely.” 

Runga has brought her family along on this tour, and she says that it’s definitely a military operation trying to keep everyone organised. 

“I’m trying to get on stage and someone’s asking me where their sock is.” 

“It’s cool to have them, but there’s... it’s just an extra layer of stuff to, y'know, find and wash,” Runga told Bridge with a laugh. 

Most people stream music nowadays, but despite having close to half a million monthly streams on Spotify, Runga says that it’s not the main way artists make their money. 

“Streaming is a bit stacked up against you,” she said. 

“It has been harder and harder for musicians to make money out of things like that, but, y'know, I guess that’s why we tour." 

“You have to really love doing it, y’know, I still do it because it’s super fun and I can’t do anything else.” 

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